“American Prometheus” is an extensive look into the life and work of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is probably best known as the father of the atomic bomb for his work as the scientific director of the Manhattan project.
The book offers a lot of insight into his childhood, education, and pre-war/post-war activities. One of the only reasons to not like the book is that it goes into a lot of detail, more than some people might be interested in. However, the detail was necessary because Oppenheimer was an interesting and complicated man. There was a lot made of Oppenheimer’s supposed connections to the communist party after WWII — this book gives you enough information to let you decide on your own how valid those claims are. There are also numerous sources and quotations used in the text from varied sources, so you can understand Oppenheimer’s interactions and activities from multiple points of view.
One of the reasons I liked this book was because it also gives background about Oppenheimer’s extensive scientific background before the war. He may have lacked some of the calculation skills of his peers but he was also one of the first to understand the significance and practicality of nuclear fission. This was a well researched and well written biography of Oppenheimer.
Three words that describe this book: Historical, Nuclear, researched
You might want to pick this book up if: You’re interested in history, especially nuclear history, including the background on Oppenheimer.
-Robbie
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
At any given library, Zadie Smith is one of those authors who claims her own shelf, or two (And that’s just in the fiction section. You’ll find her essay collections in nonfiction, somewhere in the 800s). It’s hard to miss the Zadie Smith shelf, with its bulky hardbacks and bright colors. And if you’re like me, it’s hard to walk past her name once you’ve spotted it — a name you’ve seen referenced by your favorite authors; a name that seems to invoke the idea of contemporary literature itself. It was this feeling of promise, of cultural weight, that brought me to a halt at the end of the “Smith”s. I pulled “The Autograph Man,” a large white thing boasting a protagonist by the name of Alex Li-Tandem (A Chinese main character? What are the odds? I had to investigate). After a heartrending prologue, the story begins:
”You’re either for me or against me, thought Alex Li-Tandem, referring to the daylight and, more generally, to the day. He stretched flat and made two fists. He was fully determined to lie right here until he was given something to work with, something noble, something fine. He saw no purpose in leaving his bed for a day that was against him from the get-go. He had tried it before; no good could come from it. A moment later he was surprised to feel a flush of warm light dappled over him, filtered through a blind. Nonviolent light. This was encouraging.” Continue reading “Staff Review: The First Two Novels of Zadie Smith”
“Carrie Soto Is Back” is a fictional story about a record-holding tennis player who is deemed “the greatest” but is not very likable by the public. After taking a few years off after surgery, she’s decided to come back and reclaim her title once again as it’s being threatened by another younger player. At first, I didn’t think I would enjoy this, not knowing much about tennis, but the author does such a wonderful job of building the suspense of the matches that you’re pulled in to the story so easily and rooting for her the whole time.
Three words that describe this book: Perseverance, sporty, relational
You might want to pick this book up if: You like tennis or even into sports in general; you’re looking for a story with the main character overcoming obstacles and having personal growth.
-Anonymous
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
“The Love Hypothesis” is about a biology Ph.D. student fake-dating a professor from her department to convince her best friend that she’s over another guy. It is charming, funny and very fast-paced. As they go through their fake-dating journey, it turns out that Adam, the professor, has been crushing on Olive, the student, for the past three years. Olive starts liking him too, and they develop a loving relationship. I loved reading it and was hooked instantly. There are some fun reveals throughout the story, and even though it might predictable, the novel is still great. I love it!
Three words that describe this book: Romantic, funny and motivational
You might want to pick this book up if: You like STEMinist novels, enemies-to-lovers trope and funny dialogue.
-Kristina
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
It took me more than a week to get through the first 200 pages of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” I felt confused and disengaged. Most of the characters were barely related to each other, if at all. All of them felt very self-centered, unsympathetic and uninteresting. Author Stieg Larsson also has a penchant for meandering into subplots every once in a while.
But then, if you persist, something clicks. You are in for a mystery thriller. The foundations of the trilogy are laid down and off you go. It took me three days to read the remaining 400 pages after that.
Three words that describe this book: Gripping, Mysterious, Hacker-punk
You might want to pick this book up if: You want a light yet gripping read for the week. Continue reading “Reader Review: The Millennium Trilogy”
It’s time to post something like “The 10 Best Vacation Getaways!” and “Summertime Activities With the Kids!” and I do not want to disappoint! Let’s look at some old-fashioned summer activities and how you can learn more about them at the library.
Let’s Watch an Old Time Baseball Game
When you enjoy or play baseball this Summer, whether it is a game in the backyard with friends or a professional game played by your favorite team, you are continuing an activity that started in mid-1800s. According to Britannica: “it was once thought to have been invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N.Y., but it is more likely that baseball developed from an 18th-century English game called rounders that was modified by Alexander Cartwright.” The first American league was formed in 1871 to help organize and publicize the professional teams being formed. Continue reading “Historic Summertime!”
In 2019, a reporter interviewed a notable presidential candidate on a well-kept secret. The reporter? John Hendrickson, just a few months into his new job at The Atlantic. The candidate? Former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. And the secret: his stutter.
At that point, we didn’t know much about Biden’s speech disorder — he’d become an expert at hiding it, working around his stutter with word substitutions, and maneuvering strategically out of difficult moments. But Hendrickson saw through the maneuvers, noticed the thoughtful pauses that were really the “blocks” characteristic of stuttering. He identified the coping mechanisms because he’d used similar ones his entire life. In January 2023, four years after writing an acclaimed, vibrantly human story on the potential president-elect’s lingering stutter, Hendrickson published a book detailing his own experience with the disorder. Continue reading “Staff Review: Life on Delay by John Hendrickson”
Whether you’re seeking hard-earned wisdom from those persevering through harrowing situations, or to experience an adventure vicariously through literature, there is a veritable forest of options available for the literary thrill-seeker. Below are a few recent favorites.
David Koepp has spent most of his career writing thrilling screenplays (“Jurassic Park”) but has spent the last few years writing thrilling novels. His most recent, “Aurora” begins by informing the reader that a solar flare strong enough to fry the earth’s electrical infrastructure is expected roughly every 150 years, and that the last one happened in 1859. With that terrifying knowledge in tow, the reader accompanies a few characters through the process and aftermath of the world losing power. This page-turner primarily follows partially estranged siblings: a sister and her neighbors trying to survive a world without electricity and her billionaire prepper brother discovering that his super fancy apocalypse bunker is not all he needs to survive. Continue reading “Literary Links: How to Survive Seven Very Specific Calamities”
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“The Quiet Girl”
Website / Reviews
This dramatic film is set in 1981 rural Ireland. Nine-year-old Cait is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. Quietly struggling at school and at home, she has learned to hide in plain sight from those around her. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth. Continue reading “New DVD List: The Quiet Girl & More”
“The Liminal Zone” was a breath of fresh air when it comes to Junji Itō’s work. There are four short stories; Weeping Woman where a man and his girlfriend encounter a professional mourner at a funeral and his girlfriend finds herself unable to stop crying. Madonna, where Catholic schoolgirl Maria is preyed upon by the lecherous principal and becomes scorned by his wife, who believes herself to be the reincarnation of Mother Mary. The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara is a tale of two lovers who go into the forest of Aokigahara to commit suicide, but things in the forest are not all that they seem. And finally, Slumber is a story of a man who has nightmares where he commits violent murders only to awaken and see those murders on the news as having actually happened — but how can this be?
Previously, I had felt that I was growing away from Junji Itō as a writer and artist, but as explained in the afterword of the book, this collection was published through an online publisher rather than print, so page count was not a restraint. All four short stories were compelling, horrific, and entirely original. Each fully captured my attention (which is hard to do these days).
Three words that describe this book: Horror, manga, contemporary
You might want to pick this book up if: You enjoy horror and/or manga or if you were previously a fan of Itō’s work turned off by some of his recent works like “Black Paradox.”
-Victoria
This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. Submit your own book review here for a chance to have it featured on the Adults Blog.
